Soul of the Dragon (33 page)

Ryc tried to reach Alexa as she was pulled from the car, but his right leg was pinned and he was too far away. He roared in rage as she soared limply through the air toward the tower.
 

His struggles to free his leg of the dented car door upset the vehicle’s precarious balance, and it tipped to rest completely on its roof. Ryc yelled in pain as his body shifted and pulled on his trapped limb.
 

_Calm down
, his brain ordered.
Can you, or can you not, do magic?
The voice sounded remarkably like Cyrgyn’s. Ryc immediately stilled and let his panic subside. Tarsuinn wouldn’t kill Alexa immediately—if that was what he wanted, he’d have done it from a distance. He took a deep breath and concentrated. Two seconds later the car door popped open and his leg was free. He unbuckled the harness and controlled his fall to the roof, then pulled himself out of the car.
 

He took inventory of his body—nothing broken—at the same time he surveyed the landscape. It seemed unchanged. The tower stood silent and solid, almost stoic, he imagined. Prepared to withstand what was about to take place within. He thought about waiting for conversion. Then he could fly straight to the tower window. But he’d have no way to get in and little flexibility of movement or action. Better to stay this way and hope Tarsuinn wouldn’t recognize him. In the small glimpses they’d had of each other so far, he hadn’t yet.
 

Ryc bent and leaned into the car to find the cell phone, relieved to find it undamaged. He pressed and held the number one. Rock answered immediately.
 

“Alexa’s been captured. I’m going into the tower after her.”
 

“Maintain your position, Dreugan,” Rock ordered. “Do not, I repeat, do not attempt a rescue on your own.”
 

“Sorry, Davis, I don’t take orders from you.” He set the phone back in the car and started to climb out of the ditch. Davis had no idea what was about to happen and was right in warning Ryc to stay out. But there was no way he could do that. Tarsuinn may not kill Alexa, but he could do a lot to her in the half hour it would take reinforcements to arrive.
 

Ryc paused outside the entrance to the museum. The two cars were still in the parking lot. He limped inside, glanced around, and went straight to the bickering family on the far side of the room.
 

“Folks, we’ll be closing in just a minute. Please leave through the front door.” He gestured and tried to look official.
 

The woman narrowed her eyes at his dusty clothes. “The sign says two o’clock. It’s barely noon.”
 

Ryc shrugged apologetically. “Renovations are beginning. Sorry.” He ushered them out, then looked up the stairs for the teenagers. No sign of them. The base of the tower was one room, no anteroom or storage chamber. He looked behind the information counter. Nothing.
 

He cursed, then began to climb slowly, watching carefully above him for signs of an ambush. After he’d rounded the first curve he spotted the soles of four shoes. A few steps higher and he could see the prone teenagers. They must have moved upward for more privacy.
 

Ryc didn’t want to alert Tarsuinn of his presence, but he didn’t know how to get the kids out of there without noise. Taking a chance, he thumped the bottom of the boy’s sneaker with his fist. The kid jerked his head up, his moist mouth slack and eyes dulled. They cleared and widened when he saw Ryc, and he swiped a hand across his face. The girl began fumbling to pull her shirt down.
 

Under Ryc’s censorious look they scrambled down the stairs and out the door. He took a quick breath of relief that the innocents were out of the way and proceeded up the steps to the top.
 

The door was made of solid wood, reinforced with wrought iron and no doubt barred from inside. There was no window and no modern keyhole. He wrapped his fingers around the latch and slowly pulled, then pushed. The door didn’t budge. Ryc wasn’t sure if he could unbar it without making noise. If Tarsuinn was looking right at it, silence wouldn’t matter anyway. But he could hear nothing inside the room, sense nothing but the presence of his archenemy and his true love.
 

A telltale shudder went through him and he fought back. He didn’t have much time. One warning was all he got. There was nothing to do but do it.
 

He closed his eyes and pressed his palms to the door. A quick heave, and the bar on the other side clattered to the floor. Before it settled Ryc had that door open and was through it.
 

Not fast enough. Before he could assimilate the situation he was slammed back against the wall. Cuffs snapped around his wrists and pulled his arms overhead. He grabbed the chains and kicked his feet upward, out of reach, before the same happened to them.
 

Alexa was similarly chained on the other side of the room. Tarsuinn stood in the center near a smoking brazier, smirking in that annoying way he’d always had. A younger man hovered to one side, looking both nervous and excited.
 

Tarsuinn’s sneer turned to disgust. “Who is this, Alexa? One of your spy friends, come to rescue you? How effective he was. I must intensify our training technique.”
 

The man to the side cleared his throat. “Ah, remember, Tars, I sold GenCom yesterday? You don’t—”
 

“Enough, Mark.” The man fell silent. “I remember. It was a joke.”
 

“O-okay.” Mark subsided against the wall, but Ryc saw him glare at Tarsuinn’s back.
 

Alexa opened her mouth to speak but Ryc cut her off. “I’m surprised you don’t remember me, Tarsuinn. We go way back.”
 

Tarsuinn narrowed his gaze. A flicker of recognition faded quickly, and he shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t recall. But I tend to dismiss the weak and stupid from my mind. Takes up valuable space.”
 

He turned away, but spun back when Ryc laughed. “You didn’t always consider me weak and stupid, Tars. In fact, that’s how
you
always felt when you were around me.”
 

Tarsuinn’s eyes narrowed and he stepped closer. “No one makes me feel that way, peasant.”
 

Ryc laughed again, this time with true pleasure. “That’s a good one. Calling
me
a peasant. I’ve been a lot of things, but never that.” He looked across at Alexa, who was still, watching them. “Not that being a peasant has ever been a bad thing.”
 

A furrow formed between Alexa’s eyebrows, but she said nothing.
 

“Truth is, Tarsuinn, our entire lives have come down to this. Well, my entire life, anyway.
Four of yours.”
 

Tars’ eyes widened again and shock entered them. “No. I would have known. You can’t—it can’t—how?”
 

Ryc felt the surge through his body. “Temporarily, I’m afraid.” He looked at Alexa. “I’m sorry.”
 

Tarsuinn ran to the wall and hefted a pike. “No! You can not defeat me! I will end this now!” Yelling a battle cry, he leapt at Ryc.
 

Too late. Ryc felt the pike strike his chest just as the transformation began.
 

Alexa watched with horror as the pike moved through the air. She yanked at her bonds, tried to slide her hands through the irons, knowing even if she succeeded she’d be too late to do anything. Her heart screamed though her voice was frozen. More than she wanted Cyrgyn to live, she wanted Ryc to.
 

Then she discovered the desire was one and the same.
 

For years afterward, though the scene would play itself over and over in dreams, she’d never be able to describe exactly how it happened. One moment Tarsuinn was racing across the stone floor, prepared to kill Ryc. The next he was on the floor, nearly on his back, and towering over him was a golden dragon.
 

Cyrgyn’s wings, open to their full span, beat the air and sent waves of wind across the room. His head back, he roared in outrage. Fire belched upward, to extinguish against the ceiling. Tarsuinn scrambled backward on his elbows and heels, then stood when he’d reached the wall.
 

“You!” he shouted.
 

“Me.” Cyrgyn’s foreclaws thudded to the floor. “You did not think I would let you take her without a fight, did you, Tarsuinn?”
 

Tars lifted his hands. “Nay, old friend. I did not.” He let loose a ball of fire. Cyrgyn dodged it, despite his size. He took up more than half the room.
 

Alexa tugged at the irons again, then, frustrated, growled. “Stupid, Alexa. Get clear.” She blocked off her emotions and used her brain, trying, once more, to find the energy. Tarsuinn must have used some sort of spell or shield that had prevented her from using it before. Now, though, when she concentrated, she could find the energy in the room and used it to unlock her chains. Relieved that his distraction had narrowed his focus, she watched and looked for her opening as she circled the combatants in the center of the room. Some of the water energy she’d pinned to her had dissipated while she was unconscious, but she gathered small bits of it together.
 

“Not so fast, Ms. Ranger.” Inexperienced but strong arms came around her and pinned her own arms to her sides. Then his hand came up and closed around her throat. “My employer still has plans for you. It would be rude to leave before they were complete.”
 

Alexa cursed. She’d forgotten about Mark, a stupid move. His nervousness in Tars’ presence had made him seem ineffectual, but she knew better than to assume anything.
 

Still, he was inexperienced. And clearly knew nothing about magic. She snapped a stream of energy from the air and swung a wrist iron so it smacked him on the side of the head.
 

“Ow!” His grip loosened. She closed a leg iron around his leg, pleased to see that his dress pants made it a tight fit. When he bent to grab at the shackle, she gave his shoulder a shove. He went down in an ungraceful heap, scraping his nose on the floor.
 

She turned back to the firefight. Neither dragon nor mage had managed to make a hit. The water energy she had left was only enough for one throw, and Cyrgyn was so big it was difficult to get a clear shot. Then Tars backed away from Cyrgyn and held up his hand. Alexa prepared to strike, pulling the little ball of energy into a tighter ball. Tars closed his eyes and she whipped the
energy at him.
 

She didn’t know if it hit. Clear white light flashed from Tarsuinn’s hand. It struck Cyrgyn’s scales and shattered, and Alexa was blinded by hundreds of tiny lightning bolts ricocheting around the room. She ducked and held her hands over her closed eyes, trying to clear them. She heard Cyrgyn chuckle and Tarsuinn hiss.
 

“That was new,” she muttered. She cast about, but the water energy was gone.
 

Well, she knew how to do things the old-fashioned way. She pulled her gun from the ankle holster that Tarsuinn hadn’t bothered to check and stalked him. She’d only gone a few steps when something hit her in the chest and she skidded backward on her rump.
 

Okay, he could do two things at once. She jumped up and leveled the gun at him.
 

“Halt, Tarsuinn, or I’ll blow a hole through you.” She held firm when she felt him try to pull the gun from her hand. He hefted the pike again and tried to throw it at Cyrgyn, but she fired and the bullet deflected the weapon, which clanged to the floor. She fired again, but with a flick of his wrist Tars averted the bullet to bury itself in the door.
 

Luckily it didn’t penetrate the wood, because an instant later the door slammed open and Kurt came through low, his weapon out but worthless as soon as he caught the scene in front of him.
 

“Wow,” Alexa heard him murmur. “He’s real.” He glanced at Alexa, then sidestepped and reached for her.
 

“Hold on, Kurt,” she said. “Just stand ready.”
 

Alexa watched Cyrgyn rear as another fireball bounced off his scales. This one was smaller. Tars must be running out of energy.
 

“We both know this will be a draw,” the dragon said to Tars, who was now backed against the wall, panting. “You created me, but you could not control me. I have grown strong in nearly a thousand years, stronger than you imagined, stronger than you can withstand.” He settled low and furled his wings, coiled his tail. He seemed to be relaxing, as if about to engage in social conversation.
 

Tarsuinn looked the opposite, however. He didn’t make any new moves, but Alexa figured by the tension in his body that he was gathering his strength. She heard a scrape out the window next to her. No doubt it was Rock, rappelling from the roof and biding his time. She didn’t look.
 

“Guys, come on. We’ve got to come to an agreement.” Gambling, she holstered her weapon and took a step forward. “Tars, release Cyrgyn from the curse. I won’t go to either of you. Then no one wins, no one loses. It’s a draw.”
 

Tarsuinn leaned his back against the wall, crossed his legs at the ankles, and slid his hands into his pockets. In his linen shirt and dress pants he looked a cross between old and new, the mage and the businessman. His hair, swept off his face and touching his collar, gleamed in the sun. He now looked in complete control.
 

“First, Alexa, thank you, but there is no basis for trust and I’m afraid I doubt you would hold out against the strength of your feelings for Lord Dreugan.” He straightened and began to circle the room. Cyrgyn paced him around the brazier, which had somehow managed to remain upright during the short fight.